We Can't All Be Normal
by PageJustice
Summary: Various Avengers and Loki going through every day life. What could go wrong?
1. A Slow Thursday

_A/N: For Katie, who asked for a Captain America One-Shot. I couldn't really think of anything else that didn't involve Steve on a giant eagle, so..._

_I can't write. I'm sorry._

_I will be adding more of these that aren't so, you know, sad-ish. Maybe. Requests are helpful. _

* * *

**A little slow Thursday **

The bar crowd was thinning early, even for a Thursday night—only three more guys left hanging around. It was after ten, dark, but decent weather, considering the past week had been typical New York drear.

She would be the first to admit that night shifts were the best. Lots of tips, lots of drunks, and a nice comfy baseball bat underneath the counter just in case they were a little _too_ drunk. But most of the time the night shifts played out the same.

She could tell where every single one of the bar's occupants were headed—the older man on the end would stumble home and wake up with a hangover, while the man a few seats down would wake up with a prostitute _and_ a hangover. They were both usuals. But there was the one on the opposite end. Younger guy, looked like he was in a very personal relationship with weight lifting. He sat with three empty glasses of beer in front of him, looking for the world completely sober and ridiculously depressed.

Those were the ones she liked to talk to.

Those ones told you about their life.

"Can I get you anything a little stronger?"

She was already moving towards him with whisky in hand when he looked up. She paused, startled. His eyes—old, knowing, _devastated _eyes— looked out of place on a young man. They were eyes of the sixty-year-old on the opposite side of the room. Eyes of a soldier that had seen years of war. He threw her a world-weary smile to acknowledge that she'd spoken to him.

"I'm not sure it'll make that much of a difference, ma'am." He spoke with a drawl to his words, a true New York accent if there ever was one. She grinned and slid a glass towards him anyway.

"On the house, then. You look like you could use a break."

She leaned towards him, elbows on the counter, and watched the smile that quirked the side of his mouth. A small, secret, smile that said _you have no idea_ and _thank you for understanding_ at the same time.

"My best friend died a year ago today."

She fought down her smile—that would really be a conversation killer—and donned her best concerned-barista face. She nodded for him to keep talking.

"Great friend. He died saving me. Saving a lot of people, actually." He downed the whisky. She refilled the glass and marveled that this man didn't even seem the slightest bit buzzed.

"I'm sorry," she said. And she was sorry for him, a little. He seemed to appreciate the sympathy.

And the longer she looked at him the more familiar he seemed to get, which was extremely strange. She would remember a face like that.

"We'd gone through a lot together, me and him. I'd saved him from Naz—uh, that is, I'd rescued him, only for him to die on me."

"Bastard," she muttered, shooting him a small, sad, smile to know she was joking.

"Yeah," he huffed. "He was a bastard. But I guess everybody died on me, in the end."

She dropped the smile from her face and glanced back to the empty glasses of alcohol. There was something seriously wrong with this man's life if he thought that he was completely alone. She knew she had to know him from somewhere—maybe if she could just figure it out this would all make sense—

"I'd promised her _one_ dance. One, unimportant, _lousy_, dance. And I ended up frozen in ice for fifty years. I barely got to say goodbye."

He rolled the glass of half-finished whisky around in his hand, his eyes blank. Eyes of a man that had lost so, so much.

Or where those eyes of a drunk man?

Okay, maybe she'd misread him. This man was wasted out of his mind. Completely and utterly. She had to admit that he had had a perfectly sober attitude until he'd started talking.

"I'm sorry, buddy. Enjoy your evening."

And she straightened from the counter, adjusted her apron, and walked away. The stories were no good when they were as farfetched as being frozen in ice.

She'd only looked back towards the man once as the night progressed. Instead of seeing the impossibly heart-broken face, there'd only been four empty glasses and a stack of bills on the counter.

He'd even paid for the whisky.

Weeks later she was whipping down the counters during a sluggishly boring Tuesday afternoon. There was only one man in the bar—a harassed looking guy, probably in his late forties (seemed kind of hawkish around the eyes, if she was honest with herself). It was then that she placed the face of the blue-eyed ice man.

She'd spoken to and brushed off Captain-freaking-America.


	2. In an Alley

**In an Alley**

New York is cold this time of year.

There's snow on the ground—or, what he guesses passed for snow around here. It's icy and slick, the color of dirty asphalt and mud-caked shoes. It's filthy.

Air is cold in his lungs, sharp and impure, so different from places he was used to. High up like he was all the time, you got used to fresh, out in the open, nothing but the world spread out before you like a map. He was beginning to miss everything about being an assassin. The fighting. The danger. Feeling like he was one man on top of the universe with one job.

This tranquil act that SHIELD had put him into was tearing him apart. He was getting rusty, old; he was withering away without assignments. Without targets or arrows or bloodshed. He thinks that maybe he should feel a bit bad about wanting spilled blood, but he doesn't, not really. He's far past the point of self-reflection.

He kicked loose stones as he made his way down a street. He had no idea where he was, where he was going. He'd started walking and hadn't looked back once, so maybe he wanted to get a little lost. Hawks couldn't be held in captivity.

The night was dark, no stars, of course, and the streetlights struggled to illuminate anything that wasn't three feet in front of them. It was only yellowed, slithering light, anyway. He didn't mind. His eyesight was perfectly fine, please and thanks.

So when they jumped out at him, he saw them, and he braced himself.

God, he was so _bored._ He needed a good, old fashioned, dirty, kicking-biting-jabbing fight, and if the opponents happened to be street thugs, well…Self-defense and all, right?

There were four of them, shoving him into the back of the alley. He vaguely heard them asking for the usual—wallet, money, watch, jacket (_Jacket? Why the hell would they want that?)_—and he used their stupidity to take inventory. Two had knives, one had a gun, and the other was unarmed. Idiot.

He had his hands.

He wondered if he should give them a chance to run.

But it was his duty to keep the streets clean, right? He was Avenger, a superhero, an assassin. Duty calls, and all, right?

(And he was bored, but that was beside the point.)

* * *

A/N: Right. Well. It's Hawkeye, in case you hadn't caught it...Thanks for reading!


	3. Darcy, Loki, and Josh Hutcherson

Note: Let's pretend that this takes place some time before Loki is sent back to Asgard and after he's captured. I own nothing. But I really ship Loki/Darcy I don't even know why. (Josh Hutcherson isn't actually in this, by the way.)

* * *

**Darcy, Loki, and a little Josh Hutcherson**

"I am Loki, of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose!"

"Jesus, dude, will you kindly shut your gaping pie hole for _two seconds_ before I come in there with duct tape?"

"You dare address me in such a blatant manner of disrespect, you pathetic Midguardian _child!_ I'll have you know-!"

"Okay, I can practically _see_ the exclamation marks at the end of your sentences. Why don't you just…I don't know, take a nap? Read a book? Play the quiet game?"

For exactly ten glorious, harmonious seconds, there was silence from the cell in front of her.

"I'm rather hungry."

"No, you're not."

Darcy missed the expression of exasperated pain that crossed his face. "You speak as if you know my position but you do not. It would be simply marvelous if you let me out just for the sake of food." Darcy glanced up with bored eyes and a face set in stone.

"The only way you'd find yourself outside of that cage is if I felt the need to tase you. Which is fast approaching, by the way, so keep it up. I know for a fact that you Asgardian's aren't as shock-proof as you think you are."

"Why must you all hate me so?

"You did try to take over the human race, bucko."

"…What is a "bucko"? Is that an insult in your primordial Midguardian tongue?"

"Yep," Darcy chirped, going back to flipping through her magazine. She wasn't allowed her I-pod in here—S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't want to chance it messing with the controls to the cell.

"Yes, I suppose it would be." Loki trailed off, pacing from one corner of the cell to the other. Thinking. Planning.

"I'm rather chilled."

"You're a frost giant, jackass."

He continued pacing. Plotting.

"I'm rather light-headed."

"Maybe because you're so full of yourself."

"I'm rather interested in this "quiet game" you mentioned."

"All right. Ready, set, go."

Ten more seconds of beautiful, awe-inspiring silence. Darcy breathed a sigh of relief while she hid behind her magazine. She'd been assigned Loki-Watch—not because she enjoyed it, but because she had a superpower that none of the other Avenger's seemed to possess: she was Loki-proof.

_Darcy: 1_

_Superheroes: 0_

"I'm not quite sure I understand this game."

"You lost."

More silence. Darcy got a prickling feeling on the back of her neck that suggested, not only was her glaring holes into the cover of her magazine, but he was probably creating clever ways to escape in his head. (And honestly, she'd be pretty disappointed if the latter wasn't happening.)

"I'm rather—"

"I _will_ get my Taser, Loki."

"I'm rather smitten with you, Miss Darcy."

Darcy lowered her magazine to meet Loki's eyes with a dazzling, self-satisfied smile.

"Isn't everyone?"

She brought her magazine back up to shield her face and continued reading. She couldn't wait for the second Hunger Games movie.


End file.
